Hell in the Hallways
PPT 1 Message Title
(Note to Pastor's I created a powerpoint presentation for this message,if interested Email me at ikings1844@yahoo.com and I will send it to you.)
Introduction: Explain message
I was in the car on the way to a large church where I was going to preach this message. My 18 year old son Judah asked me what I was preaching on. I told him I was preaching on, "Hell in the Hallways." He immediately told me he knew what that was. I was shocked, how could he know, I thought? He then told me hell in the hallways is when you get up in the middle of the night and have to go to the bathroom, but you are so sleepy you can't find the bathroom door. After laughing I told him I thought he was on the right track.
The Apostle Paul once stated that he was in a straight, (Phil 1:23) a straight is:
PPT 2 Definition of a straight
A straight is a narrow body of water between two larger bodies of water. A place of confinement and restriction.
Another word for a straight would be a hallway.
Hallways are those places in life where you are transitioning or waiting to transition from one place to another. When one chapter of your life has come to an end, whether it be in the area of employment, a relationship that has ended, or living in a certain house or at a certain level of financial security, when one of those things has ended and it is difficult for you, invariably you will hear someone try to comfort you with words along these lines:
"When God closes one door He opens another."
Pastor Joseph Garlington in Pittsburgh PA commenting on that thought said, "Yeah but it can be hell in the hallways."
An excellent OT example of being in a straight or a "hallway," is the life of Joseph.
He came out of a nice large place - family life in Israel, and he was headed to a nice large place -
Prime minister of Egypt, but in between was one big hellish hallway.
It is what you do in the hallways of life that in large part determines the doors of life that God will open to you.
This morning we are going to use the life of Joseph and a portion of text in Psalm 105, and his hallway experience to make these three points:
PPT 3 Message Outline
1.The Trial, 2. Tests, and 3. Triumphs of hallways.
First I would like to define hallways in life and the people who are in them.
1. Those in school are in a hallway.
2. Those seeking a mate.
3. Those looking for a job.
4. Those waiting to retire.
5. Those in a difficult marriage.
6. Those who are waiting for a healing.
7. Those who are waiting for that baby to pop out.
8. Those who are waiting for those kids to move out!
9. Those who are looking for a city whose builder and maker is God...
So you can see that life is actually one hallway after another, and in one sense this life is just the hallway to the next.
Joseph was in a hallway first, he was waiting for his dreams to come true, than to reunite with his family, then to have his bones buried in the promised land. Life is a hallway.
What we have to learn to do, is not put life off until we get out of the hallway.
Let's begin now by looking at:
I. The Trials of the Hallways.
PPT 4 The difference between trials and tests
Trials are hardships, difficulties or troubles we have to endure.
Tests on the other hand is the fact that these trials are used to critique and query the spiritual metal from which we are made. It is not a test to find faults but more of a quality control type issue where the goal is better and consistent results.
Trials and tests are so overlapping we can't often tell the difference where one begins an the other ends. In this message you will see how these overlap, and that trials also bring seasons of testing. It is my hope that God will comfort you in your trials, and grow you in your tests.
PPT 5 Sermon text
Text: Psalm 105:16-19
Ps 105:16 Moreover he called for a famine upon the land: he brake the whole staff of bread.
Ps 105:17 He sent a man before them, [even] Joseph, [who] was sold for a servant:
Ps 105:18 Whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron: Ps 105:19 Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him.
Please notice God called for a famine. The famine was to get Israel in line with God's plans for them. Perhaps your current financial crisis or other difficulty is part of God's plan to bring others to Christ.
Notice also that before He called for the famine he provided for a solution!.... He sent a man before them.
God has a solution in mind before He sends the problem! The solution is often a man or woman who has successfully navigated the hellish hallways of life. Joseph would become such a man. In the NT we read, "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John..." (John 1:6) God's answer often involves a man or woman, whose life has not been one of ease and comfort to shake and rattle this world. The bible sums up most of his life this way, "...he was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel." (Lk 1:80) I believe that was literally and spiritually true. He was in literal and spiritual deserts, but there came a day that he came forth as gold refined by fire. God longs for men and women who have been shaped in the furnace of affliction, stripped of love for this world, polished in obscurity, chiseled by the hammer of suffering, whose consecration has only grown such conditions. He always has the end product in mind, silver without dross, and He knows the only way that happens is with intense heat.
So now let's look at the trials of the hallways and the ways the evil one will try to take advantage of the things we have to endure. We will look at 3 things:
Plans are Derailed
Promises are Derided
The Place is Difficult
PPT 6 Plans are derailed.
If you study Joseph's life you will see that he thought he had it all figured out, his brothers and parents would bow down and honor him. God had told him that in visions and dreams. I think it no stretch to see that it didn't work out the way Joseph envisioned. When our plans in life are derailed, it can be very painful and difficult.
The margin for Ps. 105:18 says that "iron entered his soul." The pain went deep...
Jacob prophesying of Joseph's life in Genesis 49:23 says, "The archers have sorely grieved him..."
Hallways of life are places known for suffering and hardship.
So when life's plan's are derailed we are often attacked by a spirit of depression.
PPT 7 3 Things depression does:
1. It takes away our testimony.
2. It puts the wrong spin on life's events
3. It is used a a point of leverage by satan to tempt the flesh.
The Second trial of the Hallway is that:
PPT 8 Promises are derided.
We are attacked by a mocking spirit. Ps. 105:19 Ps 105:19 Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him "yeah hath God said..."
The enemy will using every opportunity to mock God and His promises. When Jesus was tempted by the devil, the devil said to Him, "if you are the son of God, command these stones be turned to bread." (Mt. 4:3)
It could be said this way, "if you are God's child you shouldn't be hungry, you shouldn't be suffering lack." The devil was in a way mocking the one who would later say God feeds the sparrows, and clothes the lilies, how much more will He take care of His own children. When resources are low the enemy will use it to mock the promises of provision. In Joseph's life we can easily imagine the things that where whispered in his ears in prison, mocking the visions and dreams God had given him earlier in life. In a season of trial and test promises will be derided.
The Third trial of the Hallway is that:
PPT 9 The Place is difficult.
When the place we are in, in life, is difficult we are often attacked by a grumbling spirit. Ps 105:18 his feet were hurt with fetters. Who but God can know how much suffering is summed up in those five words. The greater the suffering the more open to temptation to grumble and complain, there is no record Joseph ever did. He always focused on the outcome, "you meant it for evil, God for good.".
Grumbling denies God is involved and orchestrating events in your life, or even accuses Him of malicious intent. Grumbling is to accuse God of bad behavior, of fumbling the ball, of screwing things up. His feet they hurt with fetters. God inspired the sacred writer to pen these words. It was His way of acknowledging that He was aware of all we had to go through to reach His intended goal. God knows about feet that hurt. God knows about hearts that are broken, He doesn't subject us to these things lightly.
II. The Tests of Hallways
Defilement
Discontentment
Confinement
PPT 10 1. The Test of Defilement.
Defiled in the OT means to be rendered unfit for Divine service. You would have a spiritual out of order sign on your life. God couldn't use you to the fullest sense He wanted to.
Two ways satan tries to defile us: immorality, and bitterness.
Satan uses hallway troubles as a point of leverage to try and get us to be immoral.
She cheated on you, why don't you cheat on her?
Why don't you just get drunk, smoke some pot, pop some pills drown your sorrows. (The only thing you ever really drown is yourself, not your sorrows.)
The second way is with bitterness. Bitterness will steal the joy of the Lord and your Christian testimony right out of your life.
Look at what they did to you! The only way to overcome life's disappointments is to make them God's appointments. Isn't this what Joseph did?
You meant it for evil, God meant it for good.
When we are bitter it isn't because of what others have done it Is because we aren't better.
Illus.: sailboat and tacking.
I was on vacation in Florida, and saw a guy wind surfing on a very windy day. He was really going fast because of the heavy winds, I thought it was a lot of fun, but then realized that guy was going to have to carry his board for miles or have someone come and pick him up, because there was no way he was coming back against that heavy wind. About a half hour later I saw him coming back from where he had gone to, and was amazed how he used the wind in a zigzagging motion to his advantage. Sailors call it tacking. You see its not the winds of life that determine your life's direction, it's what you do with them.
It is what you do in the hallways of life that in large part determines the doors of life that God will open to you. It can be an excuse to sin, or a springboard to excel.
PPT 11 2. The Test of Discontentment
Sometimes I think we forget that Jesus talked about taking up our cross.
Paul spoke of the secret of contentment
Php 4:11 Not that I speak from want; for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. Php 4:12 I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need.
There is a world of difference between having a need and SUFFERING need.
In the hallways of life you will be tested to see if you can learn the secret of contentment even in a time when you are SUFFERING need.
Power Point 12 3. The Test of Confinement.
The Red light test. I think we all understand that red lights are necessary, but I also think we all hate them. I mean who really wants to wait for things? A lot of people stumble when God asks them to wait, when He confines them to a particular set of circumstances and they have no real way out.
We want it and we want it now. Will you try to run the red lights God puts in front of you? Great danger awaits if you do so.
Joseph was confined in a prison, while at the same time he sensed he had a great destiny over his life. Waiting for that destiny to unfold was in all likelihood very disconcerting to him. To him these two realities probably seemed completely opposite, and yet they are not. Confinement time helped shape him to what he would later become, and it also tested the quality of the true spiritual metal of which he was made. The awesome truth is that it is the same for all of us:
1Jo 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
This passage (1 John 3:2) indicates there is a great destiny that awaits us, but at the present we are just ordinary appearing individuals. Waiting for that destiny to unfold, and the reality of our present sonship, is often very difficult to deal with.
Illustration of how the trials and tests of life can shape us:
Illus.: Egg, carrot, lobster, secret substance.
This illustrations shows that the boiling water only highlights what it is boiling. Eggs, carrots, and Lobster are changed by boiling water, but tea bags change the water, be a tea bag to life and those around you!
Eggs get harder when boiled, carrots get softer, lobster are killed. Trials will bring out the best in you, or the worst in you. Secret substance: tea bag. Tea bags change the boiling water to flavor it like it is. Even so Christians should flavor the water of our lives with the presence of Christ, rather than being changed by the world in negative ways.
III. The Triumphs on the other side of the hallways
(For those who successfully navigate its tests and trials)
PPT 13 Authority Ps. 105:21, Power Ps. 105:22, Influence Ps 105:22, Amazing Grace Ps 105:23, Amazing Increase Ps 105:24
Ps 105:20 The king sent and loosed him; [even] the ruler of the people, and let him go free.
Ps 105:21 He made him lord of his house, and ruler of all his substance:
Ps 105:22 To bind his princes at his pleasure; and teach his senators wisdom.
Ps 105:23 Israel also came into Egypt; and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.
Ps 105:24 And he increased his people greatly; and made them stronger than their enemies.
AUTHORITY: Lord of his house, ruler of his substance, put His servants in charge of His goods.
How would you like to be put in charge of Jesus' goods? What you do in the hallways of life will determine to some measure the authority the Lord invests in your life. To him that hath will more be given. God desires to entrust us with His goods: Mt 25:14 For [the kingdom of heaven is] as a man traveling into a far country, [who] called his own servants, and delivered unto them his goods.
POWER: bind his princes: Jesus said this kind cometh forth not but by prayer and fasting. I believe we can be given great power over the enemy by what we do in the hallways of life. It is interesting to note than in the Hebrew the word translated princes means chief rulers. Wouldn't you like to be able to see greater obstructions moved out of your and the churches way? The reward of a life lived like Joseph in the hallways of life is the ability to bind chief princes.
INFLUENCE: Teach his senators wisdom. Senators were the wise men of Pharaoh's kingdom. Joseph earned credibility that allowed him to speak into their lives in such a way that they would receive it. Those who have won their stripes in hallway experiences earn for themselves spiritual collateral that allows them to speak into the lives of others. Power it has been said is the ability to effectively influence others. Joseph's hallway trials earned him that kind of spiritual power.
Amazing Grace: Israel entered Egypt. God used Joseph to influence the Egyptians in a Godly way. Jacob prophesied of Joseph that he was a fruitful bough that hung over the wall. That is word picture of people outside the kingdom enjoying some of the fruits and being positively influenced. A mixed multitude left Egypt with the Jews, some were troublemakers, I also believe many became true proselytes. Another interesting phrase is that Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham. Ham is the son of Noah whose descendents, the line of Canaan, were cursed. Genesis 8:22-25 God's amazing grace is to send His word, and His servants even to those living under a curse.
Amazing Increase: He increased His people greatly, and made them stronger than their enemies. Joseph's hallway experience impacted his nation, numerically and spiritually, and that is why God allowed all his suffering to take place.
Close: Prayer for those who are in a hallway. Prayer for those who feel they have blown it in the hallway but want to recommit to God. Prayer for those who are SUFFERING need.
